Iran accounts for a third of Brazil’s corn exports: Official
An Iranian official has confirmed reports suggesting that Brazil ships a bulk of its annual corn export, around nine million tons, to Iran, saying sanctions imposed by the United States would effectively fail to hamper a massive amount of trade between the two countries.
“Iran buys around 30 percent of Brazil’s corn exports and (the total) Brazilian annual exports to Iran is worth $2 billion,” said Majid Movafegh Ghadiri, who serves as head of Iran’s Feed Industry Association, on Sunday.
The remarks came a day after two Iranian ships stranded for more than a week off Brazil’s coast began to sail toward Iran after the Supreme Court overturned an earlier ruling which banned refueling the ships due to the American sanctions on Iran.
The verdict came after Iran threatened that it would reconsider its trade ties with Brazil and after Brazilian companies warned that refusing to give fuel to Iranian ships would cause economic losses for Brazil.
Movafegh Ghadiri dismissed concerns that Iran’s grains inventory would suffer losses if Brazil wants to follow the US sanctions and avoid refueling Iranian ships loaded with corns and other products, including soybeans, sugar and meat.
“This issue has not affected the domestic markets as such as the strategic stocks and the size of the corn imported into the country’s ports are unprecedented in the past 60 years,” the official told the Mehr news agency.
Iran is reportedly testing a new trade route with Brazil as ships carry urea to the South American country and return home with corn. That comes as Iran seeks to increase its export of petrochemicals to cope with the impacts of US sanctions on direct oil sales.
Two other Iranian ships are currently in the Brazilian coasts after unloading their urea and loading corn. There has been no clear information as to whether the two vessels would also need refueling.
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